Part of United Capital’s draw is the combination of services once thought to be the forte of smaller advisors with the economies of scale available to a major national financial firm. Brinker says that scalability is driving more advisors onto its platform.
“Since we bring so much operational, practice management, and staff training resources to bear on their offices, the folks that see the most value in joining us are the ones struggling with those problems today: independent advisors and broker-dealer reps,” Brinker says.
Lifestyle is central to United Capital’s pitch to advisors and clients —in early 2015, the brand pivoted from wealth management to financial life management, Brinker says, because money management was being commoditized by digital advice providers, large asset managers like Alliance Bernstein and SEI, and national wealth management brands like LPL and Ameriprise.
“As a $16 billion RIA, we’re able to invest in a client experience in a way few other firms can,” Brinker says. “We also understand that what can’t be scaled are things like decision-making, empathy and relationship building. If our advisors can spend 70-80 percent of their time doing that and own the final mile with the client, that’s where the real value resides.”
United Capital settled on its financial life management branding after consumer research in 2014 showed that consumers were more interested in advice focused on improving their quality of life rather than managing their money.
Similarly, many potential advisor recruits are interested in partnerships that improve the quality of service they can provide to clients and allow them to scale their practices, Brinker says.
“Most firms, at this point, are not growing at the rates that they historically have grown at,” Brinker says. “They’re spending more time operating the business and managing their staff, and they don’t have time to focus on growth, building market strategies and executing them.”